The Korean government is planning to invest a lot of funds for conservation of the soil. Accordingly, it needs quantitative information on the soil. This paper attempts to analyze the total value of soil quantitatively: the total economic value of soil can be divided into use value and non-use value. To this end, we apply a replacement cost method (RCM) and contingent valuation method (CVM). Especially, CVM is most widely used to measure the non-use value such as environment goods. We employed the one-and-one-half-bounded dichotomous choice (OOHBDC) for willingness to pay (WTP) elicitation and a spike model. The monthly mean WTP was estimated to be KRW 3,949 per household for the next 10 years, which is statistically significant at the 1% level. Expanding the value to the relevant population gives us KRW 897.9 billion per year and as of the end of 2015, the non-use value of soil was assessed to be KRW 838.6 billion. Meanwhile, use value is subdivided into direct use value and indirect use value. This value was calculated KRW 3,277 trillion and KRW 51.8 trillion, respectively. As a result, total economic value of soil is estimated to be KRW 3,330 trillion in Korea.
Keywords: Soil;Economic value;Use value;Non-use value;Contingent valuation;